Benefit brownies

News broadcasts are still talking about the suicide bombs in Turkey that killed 23 people and injured hundreds. Someone on a BBC piece yesterday called it "Turkey's 911." They suspect it was an al-Qaida planned attack, although Islamic extremists claim responsibility. The bombs hit two major Jewish synagogues, although the casualties were more Muslim passers-by.

I get why this incident is in the news. I know the Muslim-Jewish conflict is newsworthy -- it's always violent and there are lots of shocking images and smoke and rubble make for bigger viewing audiences. I do feel for the families who suffer loss in these senseless acts of violence, but I'm also more than a little disappointed in the news-as-entertainment industry.

At least 50 people die in the streets of Portland every year. Not from gunshots or traffic accidents -- those statistics are additional. These 50 die of neglect, starvation, exposure, and hopelessness. It doesn't make the news. They don't die loudly with fire and drama. They die as they lived -- quietly, unobtrusively, trying to stay out of the way and avoid offending anyone.

Portland is a progressive, generous, and tolerant community. People sleep all over the downtown area, and they aren't pushed away. We realize that they have to sleep somewhere, and there aren't enough beds. Housing costs are ridiculous. Even with our progressive attitude, we can't seem to find a place for our lowest-income population. So people die. It's much worse in other major cities. But a death is a death. It's someone who mattered to people at some point and ended up alone, shunned by others' self-righteousness or avoided by our discomfort at his appearance or illness or unkempt hair. We don't know how to reach out to people who are different from us, and the poor can't keep up with trying to be the same. So we ignore them. And they die.

On this day of remembering the dead and departed, please hold in your heart the street people who are dying in the shadows. Their lives mattered, too.

Something useful I've learned from the outcasts: They're really nice to everyone. Even back in high school, there was a relatively outcast group that wasn't focused on grades or competing or looking good -- they were doing their best to get through difficult years without jumping off an overpass. They were called the grovers in my school -- there was a grove of trees out by the athletic fields where they would hang out in their off periods or when cutting a particularly stressful class.

I judged them back then. They were the smokers. They even used marijuana (shocking!) and maybe other, scarier drugs. I didn't know. I had no contact with that world. I was a good student and busy with the literature club, the scholarship club, the musicals. I never went to the grove.

I'm sorry I didn't learn what was really going on with them until I was much older. I would have liked to acknowledge them, to thank them for being welcoming to unusual people who got mostly upturned noses in the very narrow, white, privileged main stream. I was severely depressed in those years and attempted suicide a couple of times. I didn't know that the grove was a place to shed the pain, be accepted with all my limitations, and start to heal.

The grove, in my bigger world, is the street people. Not the recently unemployed and evicted families who are struggling to get back into the mainstream -- they have their own set of problems and we've established some resources for them. I'm talking about the people who couldn't live with the hypocrisy of our society, who couldn't conform to sitting at a desk wearing a suit, or punching a clock and pushing their bodies beyond reason day after day after day. The people who, in a simpler time, would have been hunters and gatherers, making a comfortable den of natural materials, finding enough to eat and keep warm, and valuing life on this beautiful planet with simplicity, even wisdom.

Man's inhumanity to man has forced these natural, simple, not-going-to-play-that-crazy-game people into hollows under overpasses, groves of trees just off the highway. We've privatized all the land and fenced everything, so a nomadic life is difficult. We've forced the non-traditionalists to inner cities, taken away the access to fruit trees and rabbits that used to sustain them and provided only dumpsters in which to forage for food.

Rather than acknowledge their lifestyle as a healthy choice for people who struggle with stress disorders or depression, or artists and philosophers whose deep thoughts interfere with mundane work, or PTSD veterans who could use an understanding ear but find themselves shunned, we choose to label them all as street people. We decide, without any attempt to find the truth, that they are all drug addicts, all mentally ill, all dangerous criminals. We keep away. We lock our car doors when we drive by. We avoid eye contact.

I've learned that the criminals don't live this way. They steal and cheat and hurt people to acquire comfort and enjoy a lifestyle they haven't earned. Street people tend to be honest, caring, and extremely sensitive. They are the soft people -- the ones who get trod upon in our vicious, competitive "civilized" society. They live and let live. Their needs are few, and they are careful not to offend. They keep their few possessions neatly gathered and don't beg.

I have the privilege of providing a hot meal to some of Portland's street people the next two Saturdays. I'll use mostly discarded food and make it into hearty casseroles. I'll sit and eat with these warm, welcoming people and ask about their lives, their opinions, their struggles. I'll learn something. I'll get a new perspective on a social situation. I'll come away feeling accepted, appreciated, in a way that many of us only wish for.

Cooking for the street people isn't charity. Street people aren't pitiful. It's a pleasure to be aware of a mostly hidden sector of our society that should be valid but is dismissed and labelled not out of their behavior, but out of our fear.

I understand All Saints Day and Dia de Muertos. I get that people need to remember deceased loved ones. How Halloween became a major holiday with millions of dollars spent every year on costumes, decorations, junk food, and party supplies is beyond me. We're not a very logical species.

We are, by nature, a tribal animal. We need one another, and the more we develop a community where we feel needed and appreciated, the happier we tend to be. We like people who are similar to us -- differences make us nervous, sometimes scared, even violent. We want to protect the known, the comfortable, the sense of security.

So why celebrate such a unusual holiday? Why, instead of focusing on memories of loved ones, do we embrace the scary, the dangerous, the stuff of nightmares? We love a thrill, I get that. But how, in our twisted little minds, do we celebrate death and fear and danger, while we allow members of our species to live, every day, without shelter or food or even water?

We compartmentalize. We assign values to issues based on how they make us feel personally. We are not logical.

What if there was a holiday dedicated to taking some of the excess stuff in our homes and finding people in need to give it to? Not just dropping it at a Goodwill bin where it will be sold to raise funds that create jobs, as good a cause as that is. But what if we actually went out and met and talked to the disadvantaged in our own neighborhoods? You might not even know that they're there, but they are, unless you live behind a gate. What if each of us took a few pairs of socks, an old jacket or sleeping bag, and a couple of sandwiches, and then just stopped and talked to the woman huddled in the doorway, the guy with the sign on the corner, whoever it is who sleeps in that tent in the trees on the side of the highway?

We'd find out that these are people worth celebrating. People who have made contributions to society, but fallen upon hard times. People who are educated and experienced, people who may have made a bad choice or two -- like all of us -- that had unexpectedly extreme consequences.

We like to think that the poorest and most desperate among us are in that state because they screwed up or weren't smart enough or couldn't compete. We assume they're mentally ill or on drugs or criminal in some way. Some are. Most are not. Most are just like us, except without all our stuff.

What if we lifted them up and thanked them -- thanked the veterans for their service and the mothers for their sacrifice and the computer programmers for their work that ended up being the internet. What if, instead of a holiday about death and gore and violence, we had a holiday based on gratitude and service and reaching out to our fellow man?

What if, just one day a year, every desperate, discouraged, lonely, homeless person knew that they would eat and have dry socks and that someone would look them in the eye?

Katie and I drove up to Forest Heights this morning for their last farmers' market of the year. We all stood around by the cars trying to decide whether to set up, as the wind gusts blew leaves around us and mussed our hair. The two of us baled first, but as rain started and quickly developed, we figured the rest of the vendors would soon be following our lead.

So we're home, and it's warm and cozy. Katie's baking a cake. The rain hitting the skylights is a pleasant sound, with only the hum of electronics to compete with. It's likely to clear up in the afternoon, so we can procrastinate about unloading the car and going out to buy supplies for tomorrow's baking session. There's hot coffee. Life is good.

Of course, my mind turns to the people on the street. I'm doing a hot meal for them next Saturday, but today I know they're cold, damp, and uncomfortable, as well as hungry. I've been imagining this week how I can improve my soup program, and I envision a small cart, like a hot dog cart, that will keep soup warm and allow me to move from camp to camp to reach hungry people where they are. I often run into handicapped folks, amputees, and people so depressed that they can't drag themselves up to go search for food or shelter.

So many people out there say they wish they could just die quicker, instead of living in a long, drawn-out misery. I have so much comfort, and they have none, and I can't live with myself if I don't help in some way.

The west coast needs rain, and our cluttered, comfortable house is a blessing. I will only fully enjoy it, though, when we end homelessness here, and no one is hungry, wet, cold, and hopeless.

Remember hearing old stories about poor, maybe deranged old women living on cat food because they couldn't afford people food? Well, we've come a long way, baby. Now that we have better access to emergency food supplies, food stamps, and free meals here & there, the poor among us are often able to eat reasonably well, but there are no provisions for pets.

If you're at all familiar with the plight of people living on the street, especially single people, you know that a pet can be not just a companion, but the one relationship that keeps a person from completely giving up. I know several people who won't sleep in shelters because their dogs aren't allowed. Those dogs are their family.

Every now and then I see a donation of pet food at the emergency pantries where I volunteer, and it warms my heart. Somebody understands.

When there isn't any pet food available, people rely on the cans of beef stew for their dogs, the tuna for their cats, and gladly go without those protein sources for the love of their pets. Food stamps don't cover pet food, but all manner of meats, cans of soup, potted meats, and deli items find their way to hungry people's furry friends.

My very caring daughter loves animals so much that she cannot visit a shelter or vet, because their suffering hurts her too much. We're thinking that a good branch of Benefit Brownies could be dedicated to pets in need, and she could run it. We plan to hand out pet food at our homeless feed on October 31 -- we usually see at least half a dozen dogs there, and they usually eat our casseroles alongside their human companions.

Is the care for pets in need something that touches your heart as well? If so, I invite you to make a small donation to Benefit Brownies (through the store page here), and mention Katie's Pets in the comments to seller during checkout. 100% of those funds will feed the dogs and cats of homeless owners, and all of our hearts will be a little warmer.

Don't you love socks? Well, you men might not get all excited about them, but women have a lot of fun with socks. They can be subtle and elegant or plain and serviceable or bright and perky. There are designs for every holiday and occasion. I remember receiving a pair of rainbow toe socks on my 15th birthday -- you remember the ones that were like gloves for your feet with the toes separated? Silly, but I still smile at that thought 40 years later. My sister wore a similar pair under her graduation gown. But socks aren't just for fun -- they're a critical part of clothing that warm and protect our feet so we can remain mobile.

You know I love to help people on the street and I encourage you to do so as well. But we all wonder if our help will be effective. Will a cash hand-out be used to purchase drugs? Is the person standing on the corner faking poverty just for free money? Will they turn their noses up at a small gift of food? I believe the solution is socks.

Sure, there are plenty of other things that people who've lost their homes may be doing without -- toothbrushes and soap and clean clothes and warm jackets. We don't get to know all the needs of all the people. But a universal need is socks. Especially in the damp weather in the Portland area, and especially for people whose shoes are worn out or inadequate, socks can be a real blessing.

It doesn't cost us much to carry a few pairs of new socks in the glove compartment, and when you happen by someone who appears destitute, you can share a pair without worrying about whether it'll be used well.

Imagine being outside in winter without any socks, or with wet ones, and having no resources. Would you be walking around finding food and shelter? Or would you be huddled in a doorway or under some shrubs, trying to keep warm? If you're uncomfortable handing something to a stranger, most churches will do it for you, or you can send socks or a donation for them to us and we'll be delighted to help.

I know that the people who read this blog are kind, generous, and aching for people in need. Thank you all for caring.

We provided desserts at the Cedar Mill Cider Festival today. What a bunch of nice people! We were right next to the BBQ tent, and the aromas of pulled pork and sliced brisket were out of this world. Hundreds of people wandered through the event over several hours, and we raised more money than we have at any event so far. We still have a whole mess of apple crisp and ice cream, but we can save it for the homeless meal on the 31st.

Dinihanians Farm, just a mile from us, donated a thousand pounds of apples, and Boy Scout troop 208 hand-juiced them in antique presses. Everybody got free samples. Have you ever had cider that was pressed less than five minutes ago? It was amazing. It reminded me of when we were kids and Dad's garden was yielding voluminous produce. He'd go out and pick corn AFTER the water was boiling on the stove. About five minutes after it was picked, we were eating it. So. Good.

We've lost touch with freshness in our complicated world. It takes a lot of effort to take time to commune with the soil, pick vegetables, tend fruit trees. I wish we put more value on the simple art of growing our own food. We'd appreciate it so much more, and we'd take time to savor it. We'd be more grateful for it, because we'd know what it took to get it to our tables.

An apple is an amazing thing. Growing it, picking it, cutting it up for a pie or applesauce or just eating it while it's still warm from the sun, these steps are part of the process of our lives. Having our food grown, processed, and packaged by people we'll never meet from places we'll never visit divorces us from our food, our sustenance, our life force.

If you don't garden, find someone who does. Or visit a local farm, and join a CSA -- a marvelous way for the community to support local farmers and to receive the freshest produce. At least visit a farm. Once you start connecting to your food sources, you'll feel an amazing burst of life energy, and you'll wonder how you stumbled through so many years without this vibrant awareness.

Place apple slices in 9x13" baking pan. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, and toss gently to distribute evenly.

Combine last 5 ingredients and blend or cut with pastry cutter until mixture is crumbly and fairly evenly blended. Spread over apple slices. Bake at 350 for about an hour, less if you like a little bite in your apples.

We have food all over our house. The baking goes on in a commercial kitchen nearby, but the business overflows into the house, especially right before an event when we're packing up. Groceries often land here before getting transported to the kitchen. Tons of groceries. Flour and sugar in 25 pound sacks, several of them every week. Butter -- so much butter. Cases of eggs and #10 cans of pumpkin. Yesterday, a 40 pound case of frozen apple slices. Cream and chocolate and more cream.

We're on a tight budget, and getting actual healthy food is sometimes tricky. We try to focus on fresh fruits and vegetables, and we avoid more expensive and less healthy processed foods. I shop the outside edges of the store. The last week of every month, there are no tomatoes or apples left. We don't have salad or stuff to whip up a stir-fry. We make do, and when money comes in on the 1st, we start the cycle again.

Even though we're surrounded by food most of the time, eating well is still a challenge. And we're the lucky ones. Millions of American families don't have enough to eat, let alone access to fresh, whole foods. Children -- so many children -- need the free lunch they get at school so desperately that they get the impression the purpose of school is to get to eat. Like the old missions that would require recipients of a free meal to worship with them if they wanted to eat, kids go to school and go through the motions of whatever the teacher asks, often in a language they barely understand, believing that is the price of the meal. Learning? Who cares? Eating, that's what matters.

No wonder our public education system is struggling so much. It can't focus on education, because it has to bear part of the burden of the poverty crisis. I'm grateful that it's not my job to figure out how to get a balance of nutrients into those school meals on an impossible budget, knowing that the half of the kids who do have choices will be too picky to eat a lot of the healthiest options.

If you're hungry, you'll eat whatever there is. I know this from personal experience. But those of us who don't suffer from hunger on a regular basis still seem to feel that there will always be something to eat if we need or want it. And that allows us to become complacent about our food, our nutrition, and waste.

Take a look in your kitchen garbage -- or better yet, move it to a less convenient place for a couple of days. What's going in there? Is it edible? Does it contain the vegetables that one of the kids picked out of his casserole? Did someone take too big a portion and throw the rest away? Are there processed food wrappers and packages? Being more aware of our garbage may help us be more aware of what food is actually being eaten and which, no matter how nutritious, is being passed over.

​Can we be a little more efficient with our own food, so that maybe there's something we can share with the folks who would never dream of throwing out the peas or tomatoes from a hearty soup? What if nobody ever had to sort through garbage looking for food, because we shared enough when it was still fresh?

I get awfully frustrated with disability. I can't stand very long or sit very long. I take a lot of medications and my doctors know me too well. I have limited stamina, and I can get done about a quarter as much in a day as I could 10 years ago. My passion is to walk around downtown handing out sandwiches and hot soup to all the needy folks, and to stop and talk with them, get to know them, and acknowledge their humanity and our mutuality. I just can't walk that much.

I am so lucky. I have options. I can raise funds for other folks to do the feeding. I can, eventually, get a bike or electric cart from which to hand out food. I can't have everything I want right now, but I can earn and save and plan. I have a tremendously supportive, giant family and friends everywhere I turn.

I know a lot of disabled people, and they get so discouraged! There aren't enough support groups. Even if they're able to work a little, it's almost impossible to find a job that accommodates a variety of disabilities. (I had the most flexible job I can imagine and still had to leave it.) The poverty is difficult. The pain is exhausting. But the very worst part is the loneliness. It's hard to think of any reason to keep on living if you're not touching any lives and none are touching you. It's hard to accept income you didn't earn and know that if you weren't around, that money could be spent on someone else. It's that old George Bailey feeling of being worth more dead than alive.

Everyone has worth. Everyone's life matters. I believe this more strongly than most, I think. The challenge is to find and trust our gifts. The middle-aged, masters-degree holding, unemployed former managers have to wonder if their whole lives were on a wrong path or whether their usefulness has just dried up. There is more usefulness in there, somewhere, and we can find it. We have to help one another. We have to talk. We have to allow everyone the dignity of a look in the eye and at least a polite "good morning."

Is there someone you know who can't find their value? Is there something you can do or say that might make a difference? Do it! Say it! Even acknowledge that their need for a little support makes YOU feel more useful. Our lives are a delicate balance and intertwined with far more other lives than we're ever aware of. Let's not take one another for granted, and let's not assume that anyone can make it alone.

What a marvelously ambiguous word. Time to touch up your hair dye if roots are showing. Make sure you get the roots when you pull those weeds. Vegetables high in carbs tend to be root veggies. Deeper roots provide more trace minerals in our food crops. We research our ancestral roots, or establish a new home and put down roots. We learn word roots to enhance our vocabularies and square roots of numbers. We root around in sale bins or garage sales looking for that perfect something.

When are roots a good thing, and when are they problematic? Just as a weed is only a plant that we prefer not to allow to grow, roots are only as valuable as we perceive them to be. My mom can trace her family back several generations, but my dad was adopted and has no information about his parents' heritage. That certainly didn't cause me to love my father any less. His short life of service certainly wasn't less valuable because his roots were unknown.

People have roots because we are tribal creatures. Our connection to one another is what provides quality of life. If we feel accepted, appreciated, even just acknowledged, we feel better. If we're lonely, we seek out connections with others, entwine our roots, and create a garden of community.

When did our society's struggling people become weeds? In the 1930s, so many people were poor that if a man wandered up to someone's door and asked for help or offered to trade chores for food, he was fed, chores or not, if there was any food available. He was given a space in the barn to sleep to escape the elements. After WWII, when our returning veterans were more scarred and shell-shocked than ever in history, when their very sanity was impacted, we started getting scared. Eventually, a stranger approaching our door became a reason to call the police.

Our homeless aren't usually criminals -- criminals steal what they need instead of accepting a life of want. Sure, some people on the street are dangerous, and most of them have learned not to knock on doors and ask for help because we're so defensive these days. What choice does a decent, moral, unemployed, single person with no family or support have, except to seek charitable support, sleep in a doorway, and hold up a polite sign with hope that someone will see him as a plant worth watering instead of an annoying and useless weed?

The loss of community in our society is causing our gardens to wither. We have to allow the plants to grow, side by side, connected and intertwined and symbiotic. We need one another, and if we forget that, we're doomed. Together, we generate productivity, pride, strength, and renewal. Together, we thrive.